Edit: Thanks for the folks that are in adjacent areas that got back to me and were kind, I was just curious as a laymen New Yorker.
UPDATE: One of my friends got back to me I guess they have blueprints and do drills and do drills and shit and that I’m not allowed to know the rest – whatever bitch tits, comments basically stated that
In: 75
Pre-planning. Paid departments have time, money, & manpower to assess a new building and then develop a training plan for it. Sometimes they train at the building.
I used to work at various office buildings in NYC. It was not unusual to see fire department people walking around the building. Doing inspections and discussing the layout of the building. The FD people make it a point to know the buildings in the area they are posted.
What is coming…
Several companies are creating phone apps that will display maps of the building, stadium, concert venue, etc. Everyone logged into the app unique event number will appear on the map and be able to basically push to talk to coordinate with each other.
So police responses at a mass school shooting, for example, should be much faster, coordinated, and effective.
Several years ago a story went viral about how at an Amazon warehouse there were signs posted that if an emergency happened to call security, not 911. People were thinking that it was some sort of conspiracy nonsense that Amazon didn’t want this stuff to be reported, when in reality it was that security was best able to contact 911 and coordinate with rescue crews to respond to an incident in a large facility.
Sometime after this story I was visiting with my uncle who spent his career as a firefighter, eventually being a captain in large city before becoming a chief in a smaller city before retiring. I mentioned it to him and he told me that anytime he moved to a new station time would be taken to go to large facilities and tour them. They’d learn the layout of the place and how to coordinate with the security personnel there.
So it comes down to a combination of learning the places in their precinct, and coordinating with the people who work there.
I’ve personally seen this in action. One time I was driving down a road next to a campus of a big bank, one that had multiple buildings over several acres. There was an ambulance approaching with their sirens going and I saw at the entrance to the parking lot a golf cart with security guards waiting for them. They were there to escort the ambulance to the appropriate building and guide them to where the medical emergency was occurring.
Don’t forget that some buildings have to undergo fire inspections. They would also have access to the building inspector plans that have to be submitted to the city any time a building gets approved.
Firefighters in cities like NYC undergo extensive training and drills to familiarize themselves with the layouts of large buildings, ensuring a rapid response during emergencies.
When an artist draws a house on paper, a Fireman always looks at it and will tell the artist that his house is beautiful, but there are a few things that they need to make it safe.
The artist will make a change, this is called a revision. That same fireman will look at it again, and say that it is perfect! and put a gold star on the drawing, giving permission to the artist to build it.
But the Artist doesn’t know how to put two sticks together, or even build a house, so he asks his friend General, to build it for him.
When General is about 95% finished building the Artist’s house, General will call his friend Fireman to look at make sure he is happy with what they built.
Fireman will look at the Artist’s and the General’s work and say that they followed Fireman’s suggestions perfectly. Because Fireman can be a very sensitive person, and to do his job well, he wants to make sure all buildings are built in similar ways, with the same number of tools for him to do his job and keep those who live there, safe.
When the Fireman puts a gold star on the building, He will leave that copy in the building, just in case something goes wrong. And that’s how the Fireman, Artist, and General, all work together to build tall buildings.
Most departments use some form of computer based filing system that has preplans for high risk structures. They should include a plot okay which is a general overview of the site. The plot plan will show where the hydrants are, where the stand pipe hook ups are, the location of water, gas, electricity shut offs. Should also show fire alarm panel location, if there is a special hazard at site I.e. lpg tank, welding gas, compressed gases or hazardous chemicals. They second piece of information that should be included is a detailed floor plan of each floor of building. In a an apartment building most of the floors would be generally the same. The detailed map should show locations of elevators, stairwells, stand pipes, utility closets on each floor, sprinkler shutoff locations and unit numbering layout. Add a good preplan to common sense and they can figure it out.
There’s quite a few things we do. We only have a limited area that we cover. In just about any paid department we have walk throughs that we do as a form of preplanning. Especially if it’s a high life hazard like assisted living facilities, we’ll walk through before and after it’s built to have a general idea of the layout, shelter in places, and high hazard zones.
We also have layouts of most large structures available to command that they can pull up. If we’re going in for a search or trying to reach the seat of the fire in one of these buildings, command can actually direct us in a way, and advise key features of the structure.
A lot of buildings are actually build in a very similar way, and you can tell a lot about a building just by looking at it. A lot of homes will have the master bedroom opposite the side of the house with the garage or carport in it for example. Bedrooms are generally around the bathrooms, which you can see where the ventilation is set up from the roof. Little things like that can tell us a lot.
Last point, we’re also just flat out trained to search in buildings that we don’t know the layout of. We have ways to orient ourselves and find our way out if needed, but we still need to be able to think tactically when it comes to our searches.
I’m the head chef at a hotel, last summer our alarm system malfunctioned and started sounding. Didn’t matter it was a false alarm, we evacuated and when the fire department got to us they had the entire plans of the hotel in its own binder. Curious so i asked and they have these binders for every public building and apartment complex in their coverage district. This is in Sweden so check your local listings.
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